Apple-1 Computer (from Steve Jobs's office)

A board without a box

Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak founded Apple Computer on April 1, 1976, working out of Jobs's garage. Their first product was Wozniak's Apple-1, which went on sale in July 1976 for $666.66. Wozniak picked the figure because he liked repeating digits, and it was a one-third markup on the $500 wholesale price.

The Apple-1 was a single circuit board built around a MOS Technology 6502 processor running at 1 MHz with 4KB of RAM. It came without a monitor, keyboard or case. Apple's first big order came from a local computer store owner, Paul Terrell, who took 50 boards at $500 each on delivery. About 200 were made before Apple discontinued the model on September 30, 1977, after the Apple II arrived.

The machine in Jobs's office

This one was never sold. Apple kept it and used it as a demonstration machine: Jobs and Mike Markkula, Apple's first investor, used it to show potential investors and industry visitors what the company could do. Because the job was to sell the future, it carried upgrades that would appear on the Apple II.

The changes are visible. Most Apple-1s were sold as bare boards, but this one sits in a metal chassis, and a tag inside is signed 'BF,' for Bill Fernandez, Apple's first employee. The Apple-1 had no way to start up into a programming language on its own, so engineers added a custom EPROM chip that loaded BASIC automatically when it was switched on. Museum engineers who later studied it suspected the memory had also been expanded so it would not run out and crash in the middle of a demo.

The Living Computers museum director later called it 'the most important computer in history' while admitting it was also the most boring to look at.

From a shelf to a garage to a museum

Jobs resigned from Apple on September 17, 1985, after being forced out, and went on to found NeXT. He left the Apple-1 on a shelf in his office. When employees were allowed to clear the office out, engineer Don Hutmacher took it home.

Hutmacher kept it for the rest of his life. After he died, his family found it in his garage, and his widow gave it to Living Computers: Museum + Labs in Seattle, the hands-on computer museum founded by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen. It went on display in 2017 in an exhibit covering Apple's first two decades. Museum technicians copied the data from its EPROM to set up a second Apple-1 that visitors could actually use.

Allen died on October 15, 2018. The museum closed in February 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic and never reopened, and in June 2024 his estate announced that it would stay closed for good.

A record in New York

The Apple-1 was the star of a 36-lot sale of technology from Paul Allen's collection, held in New York on September 10, 2024. It was estimated at $500,000 to $800,000 and came with Hutmacher's Apple employee badge.

After 13 bids, a buyer in the room won it at a hammer price of $750,000, or $945,000 with fees, the highest price ever paid for an Apple-1 at auction. It was the third-highest lot of a sale that sold every lot and totaled $10,253,500; a Cray-1 supercomputer from the same collection brought $1,020,600.

Earlier Apple-1 sales give a sense of the jump. A working Apple-1 sold for $671,400 in 2013, and in 2014 the Henry Ford museum bought one for $905,000. Those were ordinary production machines; this was the company's own.

The missing link

The Apple II, introduced in April 1977, made Apple a real company: sales rose from $7.8 million in 1978 to $117 million in 1980, the year Apple went public. This Apple-1, modified to preview that machine, sits between the hobby board that started the company and the product that made it.

Jobs returned to Apple in 1997 and died on October 5, 2011. The demo machine he left behind in 1985 is a rare object tied to both founders: Wozniak designed it, and Jobs used it to sell the idea.

The numbers

Processor

MOS Technology 6502 at 1 MHz

Memory

4KB standard, expandable; this unit's memory likely augmented

Production

About 200, July 1976 to September 1977

Survivors

62 to 82 recorded in the Apple 1 Registry as of 2022

First order

50 boards at $500 each

2024 sale

36 lots, 100 percent sold, $10,253,500 total; this was the third-highest lot

Timeline

1. Apr 1, 1976

   Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak found Apple Computer.

2. Jul 1976

   The Apple-1 goes on sale for $666.66.

3. Apr 1977

   The Apple II is introduced.

4. Sep 30, 1977

   Apple discontinues the Apple-1 after about 200 units.

5. Sep 17, 1985

   Jobs resigns from Apple, leaving this demo Apple-1 on a shelf in his office.

6. 1985

   Engineer Don Hutmacher takes the computer home when the office is cleared.

7. 2016

   Hutmacher dies; his family finds the Apple-1 in his garage and his widow donates it to Living Computers in Seattle.

8. Apr 2017

   The computer goes on display in the museum's Apple exhibit.

9. Oct 15, 2018

   Paul Allen dies at 65.

10. Feb 2020

    Living Computers closes during the pandemic and never reopens.

11. Jun 2024

    Allen's estate announces the museum's permanent closure.

12. Sep 10, 2024

    The Apple-1 sells at auction in New York for $945,000, a record for the model.

The world in 1976

• May 24, 1976

  Concorde passenger service to Washington, D.C., begins.

• Jul 4, 1976

  The United States celebrates its Bicentennial.

• Jul 20, 1976

  Viking 1 lands on Mars and sends back the first close-up color photos of its surface.

• Jul 27, 1976

  Delegates at an American Legion convention in Philadelphia begin falling ill with what becomes known as Legionnaires' disease.

• Sep 3, 1976

  Viking 2 lands on Mars at Utopia Planitia.

• Nov 2, 1976

  Jimmy Carter defeats Gerald Ford for the presidency.

Price record

A realized auction price is what a buyer actually paid on the date shown, including the buyer's premium where the sale reported it. It is the strongest kind of reference price, and it is a record of one sale of one object on one day, not a promise of what the next example will bring.

By reference price, Apple-1 Computer (from Steve Jobs's office) is number 71 of 100 in the memorabilia entries of the FLOAT 100. 100 of those 100 rest on a realized sale; the rest carry an asking price or a guide value, and each page says which. Rank within the FLOAT 100 itself (70 here) is editorial: how much an object defines its field, not price alone.

Did you know

• The Apple-1's $666.66 price came from Wozniak's fondness for repeating digits.
• The tag inside the chassis is signed 'BF' for Bill Fernandez, Apple's first employee.
• Engineers added a custom chip so the computer booted straight into BASIC, saving time in front of investors.
• It spent years in a garage after an Apple engineer took it home from Jobs's cleared-out office.
• The winning bid came from a buyer in the room after 13 bids.
• A museum director called it the most important computer in history and also the most boring to look at.